Colin Mc Cool - Test Player

Test Player

See also: Colin McCool with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948

The following season, Wally Hammond's England cricket team travelled to Australia for the 1946–47 Ashes series. In a warm-up match before the series, McCool performed well for Queensland against the English tourists at the Brisbane Cricket Ground (the 'Gabba), taking nine wickets and "the English batsmen seemed like rabbits fascinated in the presence of a snake". He was selected for the First Test at the same ground the following week. He just missed out on a century on his Ashes debut, scoring 95 and only bowling one over as Australia won the Test by an innings and 332 runs. In the Second Test at Sydney, McCool took eight wickets, including the prize wicket of Hammond twice. Australia won by an innings and 33 runs. The Third Test at Melbourne saw McCool make his maiden Test century, 104 not out in a drawn match. The Melbourne businessman and underworld figure, John Wren had promised McCool one pound for every run he made that innings; this was at a time when ten pounds was the average weekly wage in Australia. The cheque—given to McCool the next day—allowed him to place a deposit on a house.

He played in the remaining two Tests, making 272 runs at an average of 54 and taking 18 wickets at just over 27 apiece. He took 5/44 in the Fifth Test. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack wrote that his batting featured "wristy cuts" and "vigorous hooks", opining that there were "few better players of spin bowling on a difficult pitch". Wisden said that his slow and loopy leg spin was "a clever mixture of leg-breaks and googlies".

India toured Australia for the first time in 1947–48. McCool played in three Tests without much success, scoring only 46 runs and taking only four wickets. Nevertheless he was selected as part of Australian team to tour England in 1948 that would be known as the Invincibles. He took 57 wickets on the tour but bowling for long periods caused him to continually tear a callus on his third finger, used to impart spin on the ball. As a result his captain, Don Bradman, felt compelled to leave him out of the Test matches, feeling that his finger would not be able to handle the necessarily long bowling spells. This decision was aided by the then existing rule allowing a new ball to be used every 55 overs, allowing Bradman to use his fast bowlers more often. For the rest of his career, McCool was troubled by the skin rubbing off his spinning finger. McCool and his fellow fringe members of the squad, Ron Hamence and Doug Ring, would refer themselves as the "ground-staff" as it was unlikely that the tour selectors would include them in the Test team that tour. The cricket writer Alan Gibson, who knew McCool well in his later cricket career at Somerset, wrote that the omission "distressed him greatly at the time, though he could be philosophical enough about it later".

He played in all five Tests on tour against South Africa. He took 51 wickets in all matches, including 5/41 in the Second Test at Newlands. In 1950–51, McCool was the leading wicket taker in the Sheffield Shield competition, however he was not selected in the Test team against the touring English; nor against the West Indies the following season.